


SSR Mark II

by deniigiq



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, De-Serumed Steve Rogers, Government Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Other, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sokovia Accords, United Nations actually does their thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 07:55:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11755407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: Steve is taken into US governmental custody through a legal loophole in the Accords he signed after extensive negotiations with the UN.The results of this spawn a political nightmare. Faced with a tiny, feral Steve and an enormous human rights violation on their hands, the UN goes on damage control by putting all American superheroes into protective custody at a safehouse in Geneva. As the Greater American super-troop struggles to adjust to their new, frankly infuriating situation, Barnes tries to create a safe space for Steve while trying to figure out who he is, who he needs to be, and how to navigate the politics of getting back home.





	SSR Mark II

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I haven't written fic since I was thirteen. Please bear with me as I sort this out.   
> Also, a warning: There is a brief mention of suicidal ideation in the first half of the story. There is also some references to body dysmorphia in the second half.

***

Months of waiting and finally Barnes could see an end in sight. He waited in the hallway outside the courtroom where a jury watched film after film of Steve’s monthly inspections. They watched as a UN-appointed social worker grasped Steve’s thin wrists and dictated his reactions to the audience. 

“Lacerations to the left lower cheek; bruising around the lips. Cap? Cap, did you eat today? Client does not answer the posed question, refusing eye contact. Client appears to have developed a preference towards non-verbal communication since last meeting. Client’s elbow and wrist are positioned awkwardly. Client’s arm appears to have developed tremors since last interview. I will physically move the client to get a better look at the arm. Steve—Cap—Cap it’s okay, I’m just going to look—just looking not moving. Okay, that’s okay if you don’t want me to touch that, its okay. Can you show me? Oh, dear. Good job, that’s—oh dear. Um. Client’s arm is dislocated at the shoulder. Client continues to refuse eye contact. Client continues to be non-verbal.”

Barnes closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the sick green concrete behind him. He knew every second of the interviews; he imagined the slick popping noise of the social worker popping Steve’s should back into place. Seconds later he heard the collective gasp of the jury.

Part of his agreement to sign the Accords was to maintain contact with “his peers,” which apparently included Steve. He and his “peers” all signed the Accords with allegiance to a nation, except for a few of them. He and a handful of others, awarded Prisoner of War or political refugee or whatever the fuck else status, were “requested” to give their allegiance to the UN. Most of the Avengers, current and former, gave their allegiance to the good old US of A. Steve gave his allegiance to the USA. Ever the patriot. Days after he signed, the US Army arrived in Geneva to inform him that, congratulations, he’d been drafted by special order of Congress and that, as a result of his condition, his body was property of the United States government. 

Years of bleeding from the gums, eyes, ears did not prepare him for the drop in his stomach when Steve’s eyes widened, when he swiveled his head to see what the UN specialists had to say. They were good people, Barnes had since learned. They did not want to give up Steve after having spent what amounted to a “metric fuckload” (so designated by Erin, Madeline, and Thomas, the secretaries of the Accord branch) of time and resources negotiating with Captain America. They were just as shocked as Steve was handcuffed and frog-marched out of the building and into the awaiting jet. 

“In summary, client is distressed and his physical condition has deteriorated. Client has lost approximately 3 inches in height and 20 pounds in weight since August. According to the reports given to me upon arrival to this facility, client has been out on 22 missions involving demanding physical labor since my visit in July. Multiple instances of injury have been noted for these missions, however medical reports list only about two-thirds of the injuries as severe enough to require quote—involved intervention—unquote. My recommendations are as follows: removal of client from current facilities, intensive therapy and counseling, and investigation into the failure of a UN body to uphold its agreements in respect to the amended Sokovia Accords. As for the timeline of this recommendation, I advise strongly for action to be taken ASAP, that is, as soon as possible.”

Eighteen months without Steve were not excruciating, not as much as they should have been. Barnes received a frankly insulting amount of therapy, physical and emotional, which he was 98.5% sure he did not deserve, but undertook anyways because the alternative was imprisonment or cryo. He had to be a good boy or they’d put him in another tank, he learned. At first, he got a few emails from Steve back in America. He didn’t know where his facility was, Steve told him. He wasn’t allowed to tell Barnes what the staff were doing to him, what outrageous rationale the army used to draft him during peacetime, or even what he did day-to-day. But he missed Barnes terribly. And he was sorry that they had to do this. And this was all his fault. And he should have just signed the Accords as they were. And actually he should have just put a bullet in his brain as soon as he woke up the first time to spare everyone the trouble. And Jesus, what would his ma have said? 

Three weeks in, the emails stopped. Four months in, he received a notification from the army that he was not allowed to have contact with “SSR Mark II” unless he was next of kin. Four months and 6 hours in, he’d broken down in the dayroom; he couldn’t stop the sobs or the anchor which pushed through his gut, pinning him to the floor in front of the hideously uncomfortable tan couch. As soon as they take your name, he knew, you were in for some shit. He did not want Steve to taste pain the way he had. He knew what people like them were capable of and his only comfort in the past months, with all the international uproar over negotiations between individual superheroes (read vigilantes and potential threats to humanity) and the Accords, was that he would be the only one who experienced the full extent of Hydra’s depravity. They’d had too easy of a time. Things had gone too smoothly. For people like him and Steve, things could never get too good or stay too good for long. 

Sam found him on the floor screaming without sound. Sam had a sixth sense for other people’s distress. He told Barnes once that he could smell it on people. Smells like the moment before a summer rain, like hot tar and wet grass, he said. Sam read the email with his hands on Barnes’s shoulders and, being the most level-headed person in the room, called for Barnes’s therapist and assigned social worker. They were not happy to be so rudely awakened at 0200 for their favorite client, but they came. They called Steve’s once-assigned therapist and social worker. Somehow, by a miracle of bureaucracy, four months and 10 hours after Steve was taken away, the UN was negotiating for his return to the designated rehab facilities in Geneva. True to their purpose, they could sense a human rights violation in that email. 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are now dismissed from the court to deliberate on this issue. Please inform the clerk when you have reached a verdict.” 

Six months in and the UN had negotiated monthly updates on Steve’s wellbeing while he was held by the US army. A UN-appointed social worker named Dr. Charles Maskall went to the undisclosed facility Steve was at once a month and filmed himself speaking with Steve and doing a physical and emotional check-in. 

For the first three check-ins, Steve had just looked exhausted. He stated that he did not think that he was eating enough. He had a fat lip which he did not mention, even when directly prompted to address it. He kept saying that he was very tired and wanted to sleep but couldn’t. When asked why he couldn’t sleep he shrugged. Dr. Maskall, a frequently cold but determined man, tried to get around the issue with pointed questions: Did someone tell you you can’t sleep? Shrug. Are there physical consequences if you appear to fall asleep? Shrug. Have you been provided with a safe space to sleep? Shrug; Doc, listen, I’m just tired, it’s—I’m just tired, I don’t know why.

Everyone knew why. 

The fourth check-in saw bruises blooming across Steve’s lips. Bruises like that usually faded in hours. When Dr. Maskall asked how old they were, Steve’s eyes widened. It was a trick question. He couldn’t pick a time without revealing that he’d had the shit slapped out of him recently. He shrugged. 

Around the tenth month that Steven had been gone and the sixth check-in, Dr. Maskall’s check-in videos changed. Instead of beginning at the interview with Steve, he held the camera aloft as he was guided to a small room in the barracks. It had two sets of bunk-beds in it and a wooden desk with a blue-cushioned chair next to the door. One of the lightbulbs in the overhead light had burnt out and the room was only half-lit because of it. A soldier wearing fatigues reached up onto the furthest top-most bunk from the door and shook what turned out to be Steve facing the wall. He woke up but was sluggish to turn over and climb off the bunk to sit with Dr. Maskall. 

Dr. Maskall started rattling off the usual questions, carefully ignoring the fact that both Steve’s eyes were dark with circles of exhaustion and there was blood drying around his nose. Steve fell asleep three-quarters of the way through the interview and flinched with his whole body when Maskall lightly laid his hand on his should to wake him. Doc, I’m fine. I’m sorry, I’m just grumpy as shit. I haven’t been sleeping so good. 

What’s preventing you from sleeping? Shrug. You seem more tired than usual, Steven; have you been eating enough? Shrug. Does the pain you are in prevent you from sleeping?   
I’m not in pain, Doc. Just—just—maybe—I don’t know. 

Anyone with eyes knew. 

They were experimenting on him. Trying to make a more obedient soldier. “SSR Mark II” the email had said. “Mark II” read the peeling tape on the bunk Steve had crawled off of. Why waste a perfectly good super soldier when you could re-condition them into submission. Barnes had put his head into his hands and breathed deeply as he watched the video. His therapist, Ruby, a darling girl with deep brown eyes and large shiny earrings, sat silently next to him. She did not coach him through breathing as usual. Later, when he passed by Sam’s bunk, he saw him holding his head in the same way.   
Check-in number eight brought all registered American superheroes to Geneva for protective holding. Steve did not get up from his bunk for that check-in. When Dr. Maskall called his name, he did not move. Two soldiers came in and dragged him across his bunk. He woke up halfway across the sheets and screamed out “No!” One of the soldiers grabbed his upper-arm and drew him abruptly to their face; a low voice promised something (probably pain) and then the solder dragged Steve the rest of the way off of the bed. 

For one surreal moment, Barnes wondered how the soldier so easily moved all 200 pounds of Steve, until Steve settled down in front of the camera. He wasn’t 200 pounds; he might have been 150. He might have been 5 feet and 10 inches tall.

Maskall asked him if he had been eating enough and he stared straight into the camera. No. Have you been sleeping enough? No. Is someone hurting you? Yes. How did they hurt you? I can’t say. When did—you can’t say? No, sir. Where are you hurt? Cheekbone, hip, shoulder, oblique, knee. How did you acquire those injuries? I can’t say. When did you acquire those injuries? I can’t say. Are they healing?   
No, sir.  
Why not?   
The US army, sir. 

If the government could somehow draft then hurt Steve enough to short-circuit the serum, there was no telling what they could do to non-super soldier “heroes.” Always the sacrificial lamb, Barnes had thought. Their branch of the UN wrote some sharply worded emails to some lawyers who wrote sharply worded emails to their clients and to certain congressmen who carefully ignored or forwarded those emails to designated officials. 

“To whom it may concern:

Captain Steven Grant Rogers, hereafter known as SSR Mark II, is in the custody of the United States government. His well-being is being monitored by United States officials and, despite evidence which he has supplied to the contrary, he is not experiencing the violation of any rights outside those which he is entitled to as a citizen of the United States of America. We appreciate the United Nation’s concern into the wellbeing of one of its registered superhumans, however, the United States intends to take full responsibility for and oversee the maintenance of SSR Mark II during his time in the United States Armed Forces. 

Whenever SSR Mark II’s draft term (as mandated by Congressional order) is completed, the United States will transfer responsibility over his maintenance to the United Nations.

Thank you for your inquiry and please contact us if you have any remaining questions or concerns.”

Steve was 5 feet 6 inches tall and 125 pounds in his ninth check-in video. He did not respond to his name and answered questions only with “yes, sir” and “no, sir.” A handler with tan skin and thick black hair sat with him on the bunk in this video, and his eyes wandered back to her before and after every question. Barnes had a lot of feelings about this handler. Ruby asked him to list them out.   
Anger.  
Frustration.  
Sadness.  
Rage.  
Gut-Clenching.  
Tear-Inducing.  
Fear.  
Hate.  
Hate.   
Hate.

Dr. Maskall asked Steve who the handler was and Steve twisted his whole body to stare at her, looking for the right answer. She must have read his desperation on his face because she reached out a hand and stroked his (much longer, just like back when--) hair before answering, “Valerie Gonzalez, First Lieutenant. SSR Mark II’s primary handler.” 

As he watched her pull back her hand, Steve’s eyes following it, Barnes thought she was too kind to be a handler. Or maybe, just maybe, she did not want to be a handler and actually liked Steve. Fat chance. It was a simple equation. Handler = Torturer. Whether they did it through kindness or by blood, they held the knife. 

Maskall was unimpressed, “His name is Steven Grant Rogers. Why do you refer to him as SSR Mark II?” 

“I have been instructed to refer to him as such, sir.” 

“Do you find that dehumanizing, not to give him a name?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that, sir.”

“Why not?”   
“Because I cannot speak for the entire US army.” 

“No, but perhaps you can speak for yourself.” Gonzalez answered with her eyes, so dark they were black in the half-lit room. 

Barnes amended his list of feelings about her with Ruby later:

Hope.  
Maybe a little faith. 

Steve got smaller and thinner with every check-in. On one hand, the back of Barnes’s throat crawled and burned with screams of frustration which he tried to contain. On the other hand, his throat constricted, choking him as he realized that seeing Steve so small shook up his memories and brought him closer and closer to the man he was before The Soldier. Tiny Steve, who could no longer hide the track marks and bruising of needles in the bends of his elbows, who snarled and lashed out at Dr. Maskall as he tried to test his lung capacity, brought with his gaunt face thoughts of Coney Island, sweltering fire escapes, and the fishy, rotten smell of the dockyard. Barnes could feel splinters in his hands and blisters on his feet from lugging crates. He felt the ache of heavy grain sacks on his shoulders and the swell in his heart at his father’s proud foreman’s eyes. Steve’s balled, scabbed fists and bloody nose brought him back to countless alleys, reeking of piss and damp and rot and littered with broken glass, with the taste of iron in his mouth.

As Steve became more and more SSR Mark II, Barnes became more and more Bucky Barnes and he was devastated and grateful and stupidly, stupidly in love. That little shit, fighting his UN-appointed social worker, was the light of his fucking life. He’d give anything to hold that ball of rage. 

Even testify in front of a jury that Steve’s human rights had been violated thoroughly and unabashedly by the United States government. 

***

Stark had commandeered two of the small barrack rooms for his lab equipment. No one argued with him because they did not want to die or become his muse of the day. 

It had not been an easy or happy move for most of the superhumans; people had lives outside protecting cities and people and gutters. It was trying on all parties involved to move an ever-changing but never shrinking population of superhumans from all over the US to a single barracks building in a single city in Switzerland. Sam, however, had no problem telling Barnes or anyone else who bitched in his presence to look the bigger picture. Barnes had decided that he loved Sam dearly, like how he loved Steve, but differently. He did not discuss this with Ruby. Right now, however, he did not love Sam because Sam had suggested that he talk to Tony because when (not if anymore) Steve was delivered (forcibly) to the safehouse, things were bound to get volatile between the three of them and Steve wasn’t in a position to negotiate that particular dilemma. That left it up to Barnes to create in Ruby’s words, a “safe space.”

Which is how Barnes ended up standing outside Stark’s impromptu labs, trying to think of a non-asshole-ish way to say “sorry I killed your parents, but I was kinda fucked up at the time.” He wasn’t delusional enough to think that Pepper and Colonel Rhodes would not be listening in on this conversation and or be 110% ready to bust into the room to fight at any moment, so he had to do this right the first time. 

“Tinman, is there a particular reason you are brooding by my door today? Because, really I’m flattered—and irresistible--apparently even to Cold War assassins—actually you’re probably a cold and hot war assassin now that I think about it—“ Somehow, in the time it took for Barnes to get to Stark’s door and to start to regret his decision to do so, Stark, still sporting a full welding mask, had taken up residence on the other side of the doorway to perform consistent and pervasive mouth diarrhea. 

“I’m sorry I fucked up and murdered your parents,” Barnes’s mouth opted to lead with.

“Oh,” Tony didn’t lift his mask. 

“Yeah,” Good going, Barnes. 10 out of 10 for awkward openers. 

“Well, you know, I’ve given it some thought,” Stark pushed his mask up and crossed his arms, “Or rather, Pep made me give it some thought through our mandatory voluntary therapy sessions, and I think? I might forgive you?” 

Barnes felt that that deserved the jaw drop he gave it. 

“Why?” Stark looked uncomfortable. “No, I mean, it’s not that I’m not grateful for that and thank you for even considering it but why? You don’t know me. I killed your ma and dad and Steve told me later that Howie was a fucking drunk-ass asshole and a general piece of shit and I’m real sorry about that ‘cause no one deserves an abusive father, and yeah, maybe I was pretty fucked up on drugs and cryo and brainwashing whatever, but, um. I. You don’t have to,” Barnes wondered if it was possible to strangle yourself with your own hands or if, like how your brain doesn’t let you bite through your own fingers, you would just pass out first. Good with words, Steve had lied to him for years. 

“What I’m trying to say,” he emphasized with his hands, “is that I fucked up royally and you are in no way obligated to forgive me, because honestly I don’t really forgive myself. All I want is to make sure that this, tension—whatever it is—stays between you and me because Stevie won’t be able to deal with it when he gets here.” 

Stark gave him a measured look. He took a long moment before saying, in the most serious tone Barnes had ever heard from him, “Steve knew about what happened and didn’t tell me, which is why I have beef with him. I don’t want people to go behind my back about shit. I can’t do that anymore. I’m mostly mad at him because of that and because, despite knowing how I would feel about that shit, he sided with you. I’m realizing now that that was unfair of me; Steve didn’t owe me anything. And I mean, if Pep,” he cut himself and swallowed, rubbed his face and carried on, “Listen. You’re all Steve has left of himself or something; he has had a hell of a time finding himself in the last few years and since you guys are all…uh, you, or something, he thinks he can’t be whole without you. So, of course he protected you, I guess. And, yeah. Once it came out that you were as fucked up as a human could be when you k-killed them, I couldn’t really blame you as much anymore.”

Barnes needed about 5 million years to process this. Stark forgave him? He hadn’t even forgiven himself. How could someone forgive you before you were ready to forgive yourself? That seemed backwards. 

“Uh,” he said eloquently, “Thank you. No really, thank you. I just—Howie—I know he was awful to you, but he was my friend too.” His voice trailed off; he didn’t know what he wanted to say anymore. Tony seemed to accept that for what it was. 

“Yeah, he was a whole lot of peoples’ friend; just not mine. Anyways, though, I appreciate you trying to apologize and I’m still gonna be pissed about the whole situation for a while—which my therapist calls “processing” and “valid” does yours talk like this?—but you know, I’m not looking to make Steve’s life harder when he gets back. We can talk when he’s in a better place, you know, less…feral.” 

The more mature Stark got the sooner he needed to end this conversation. 

“Yeah well, thanks for that. I, um. I’m better with words when they don’t involve feelings, I promise. So, I’ll see you around?” 

Stark raised an eyebrow and his eyes bounced between Barnes’s face and his metal arm several times. Fair was fair. 

“And you can play with the arm if you want next time,” he squeezed out. Stark’s face lit up like the fourth of July and Barnes beat a hasty retreat. 

***

Steve had three handlers: First Lieutenant Valerie Gonzalez and Second Lieutenants Ayesha Taylor and Amir Oman. All three testified against his treatment in US army custody. All three received protection from the UN to testify. When asked how they came to be handlers, Taylor spoke for all of them when she said “he didn’t try to fight us like he did with the others.” Barnes took that to mean that Steve picked the three of them himself. Always working the system, he thought. 

Steve, the Geneva super-troop was informed, probably was not in a condition to be alone in a room at present time, and for that reason, he would share a barracks with his handlers. The three of them seemed to take this as normal and, when asked if they had any requests for bedding, lighting, etc. Gonzalez requested two down duvets and a string of Christmas lights on Steve’s behalf. 

“He likes to burrow,” she stated at Barnes’s raised eyebrow. Sam snorted and leaned across the table with a wide grin. Barton, who usually only showed up to meetings to harass Sam and Barnes, slouched in his chair muttering about how he didn’t know they could request fairy lights and if Steve could have fancy bedding why the fuck couldn’t Lucky? while Natasha beamed from the far corner of the room.

Barton was unusually helpful in Steve-proofing the dayroom. Suspiciously helpful. He and Barnes’s relationship was based entirely on competition and bad television, so Barnes didn’t understand his sudden preoccupation with removing sharp edges and potential weapons (“Anything is a potential weapon,” Natasha had pouted from the back of the couch) from the neutral toned room. 

Barnes was considering the merits of moving the DVD collection up an additional two shelves when Barton sighed and dropped onto the hideous couch. Barnes glanced over this shoulder to see the other man slouched low on the couch, his arms sprawled out across his body but clasped at the hands. He looked immeasurably sad. Okay, he’d bite. 

“S’matter with you, Barton?” Barton scrubbed a hand across his face and looked over Barnes’s shoulder for a moment, considering what he might do with honest information if provided. Something must have tipped the scales in Barnes’s favor. 

“I guess I just realized how much I miss Steve, you know?” Barnes hummed in agreement. Boy howdy, did he know. “And even though we’re getting Steve back, we aren’t really getting Steve back.”

Barnes hummed again, “I get that, but I would rather have any Steve back than no Steve.” Barton let the silence hang. 

“Besides, if I could become a person again after what they did to me, then I’m sure Stevie can come back from whatever they did to him. He’s always been a thousand times more—what’s it called when people bounce back real quick?”

“Resilient,” Barton said. 

“Resilient, yeah. A thousand times more resilient than me,” Barnes finished. They let the silence hang again. Barnes started moving the DVDs up to the fifth shelf. It probably wouldn’t stop Steve if he really wanted to hurt someone, but at least they would be out of his direct eyeline.

“He ain’t gonna like therapy,” Barton mused. 

***

Steve was brought in way too soon for the Steve-proofing team. They hadn’t finished installing locks on the kitchen drawers or replacing torn window screens when Dr. Maskall called the barracks to inform them that he and his team were on their way to the facility. 

Barnes felt his heartrate increase and only after Barton slapped his hands away from the plastic flowers in the foyer for the third time did he realize how nervous and fidgety he was. While he, Sam, Barton, Stark, and two of the handlers crowded awkwardly around the foyer, Natasha, Pepper, the last handler, and Banner lounged on the hideous couch and its equally hideous loveseat. Banner had been dragged to the safehouse just short of kicking and screaming. Natasha had let on that they’d alternatively bribed him with seeing Stark (how the fuck were those two so close) and guilted him into settling in with declarations of peace and protection. Banner was a sucker for human rights. He was also fidgeting; it made Barnes feel better. 

The door cracked open and everyone snapped up ramrod straight, some crowding the entrance and others moving away from it. Dr. Maskall and another man walked through; the last guy, a doctor judging by his white labcoat, held an IV bag high in one hand and wrapped his other arm protectively around Steve’s shoulders. Steve, for his part, was tiny, gaunt, wearing the tiniest fatigues Barnes had ever seen, and trying to rip out his IV. 

Steve looked up from ruining the doctor’s work and stared at his awkwardly hovering friends with blue, blue eyes. Sam and Stark clearly hadn’t been prepared for how small Steve was. They both tried to cover gapes and wide eyes. Barnes felt like Bucky. His arms twitched with his desire to gather all 5 foot 2 inches of Steve, all ninety-odd pounds of him, in them and crush him into his neck. But Steve hated being manhandled; only during sex, that was their rule. Bucky’s memory bloomed with multiple low conversations about how it felt real bad, real, real bad, Buck, to just be snatched up and put down wherever some damn person pleased. He wasn’t a child, his body was his own, he was allowed to take up space wherever he wanted and no one ought to have the right to take that away, even for his own good. It was a hard rule to remember and respect, especially when Steve was getting the shit beat out of him. 

Dr. Maskall was saying something, re-introducing Steve to his friends as if they’d never met; he introduced everyone by their codename and their real name and who they were to Steve. Steve showed no sign of recognition, which, wow, was awful. 

“This is The Winter Soldier,” Dr. Maskall said carefully, indicating with his hand to Bucky, “His name is James Buchanan Barnes, you two are very close. Best friends, I think?” 

Steve had stared at everyone’s face intensely, brow furrowed and eyes sharp, while they were introduced. He shifted his gaze to Bucky and everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath. Steve tilted his head to the left, eyes tracing Bucky’s features. He took a step forward and the momentum made the others feel as though they’d taken a step back. 

“Buck?” He asked, voice hoarse and scratchy like he’d just woken up, like he’d been screaming for hours. 

Bucky’s heart swelled and his lips stretched and all he could say was “Yeah, pal?”

And then Steve saw Gonzalez behind him and ran straight past him into her arms. He came up to her shoulder, buried his face in her chest, arms (and the now dragging IV bag) squeezing tight around her. That fucking hurt. 

“Hey buddy,” Gonzalez crooned to him, stroking his floppy blond hair, “How are you doing? They treating you okay?” Steve squirmed in an attempt to meld himself to her. Barnes was not jealous. He was not. He wasn’t hurt either. His heart was fucking fine. Nat needed to stop staring at him. 

“Hey,” Gonzalez gently pried Steve off of her and lifted his face to meet her eyes, “I’m glad you’re okay, sweetheart, I am. But I want you to do me a favor. You see that guy?” She gestured to Barnes, “He’s your friend, yeah? You know him, yeah? Go say hello to him for a while, okay? That’s where you’re supposed to be.” Her eyes weren’t black like they had appeared to be in the interview videos. She was a tall, strong woman, and her skin was warm brown. Her hair was thick and combed back into a severe bun. Barnes felt bad for being jealous; this gal, he decided, this gal could stay. 

Steve initially took the suggestion as an order, he whirled around, studied Barnes for a moment and glanced back to Gonzalez. She gave him a little push and he stepped away from her with evident hesitation. Then he locked eyes back on Barnes. Barnes (be Bucky, you have to be Bucky) opened his arms a little. Steve’s eyes widened fractionally before he darted straight into Barnes’s chest with a thump to his sternum. 

“Buck?”

“Yeah, babydoll?”

Oops, well he fucked up. There were other people here, who were now all staring. Nat seriously needed to stop smirking it was not cute. The corner of Sam’s mouth was twitching. Stark hadn’t been able to stop gaping since Steve walked in that door. But all that mattered was Steve, Steve whose face turned up to him from his chest and Steve who did the amazing sunshine smile. His handlers started to look a little like fish with round eyes and loose jaws. 

Apparently they had never seen the sunshine smile. 

Distracted by the sunshine smile, he didn’t see the fist coming. 

***

Steve liked to fight and hide. Assuming that he liked anything. Mostly, what he appeared to like to do was to hide under the hideous couch in the dayroom like some kind of demented cat. 

He liked to refuse to eat, refuse to speak, and not come when called. He did not like therapy. He did not like Stark. He did not like baths or movies or loud noises or raised hands. 

And Barnes, well, Barnes was The Winter Soldier. The Winter Fucking Soldier. He should have seen that fist coming and he should have—could have—countered it, but no. He and his concussion did not do that. 

He started spending more time in the gym with Nat and Barton in between the time he spent laying on the floor in front of the hideous couch, watching Steve glare at him. Barnes took on the role of caregiver for Steve as every bone in his body commanded that he do. He had a lengthy conversation with Ruby about the merits and potential downfalls of this mentality. She used words like “co-dependence” and “self-advocacy” and “self-worth.” He didn’t disagree, but he was also the only one of the superhumans who could persuade Steve to drink protein shakes (which he loathed almost as much as the nasogastric tube they’d taped to his face when he refused to eat anything the first two weeks), the only one who could fish Steve out from under the couch without him screaming or sobbing, the only one for whom Steve would swallow the myriad of medications his doctor prescribed, and the only one Steve felt comfortable bathing with (although Sam was a close contender for that role for reasons beyond Barnes’s understanding). So he didn’t really know what to do with those words even though he had them now. 

While the Greater American super-troop endured having its ankles attacked every day in the dayroom, their UN advocates were launching a campaign to impose regulations on the treatment of superhumans in the good old US of A. Steve became their obvious choice for a case study in their lobbying efforts with the government and the public. Sam, who continued to be the most level-headed person in their party and who had, had the least involvement with SHIELD became the other poster child. 

“You are a shining example of the best qualities of American superheroes, from your military service to your current profession,” The UN Public Relations specialist explained to the group when Sam asked why he had to do it. 

“If you put a black guy on your poster in America,” Sam later grumbled at Barnes, “It automatically makes you super progressive and inclusive.” Colonel Rhodes hummed from his place on the loveseat beside them. 

The PR team asked the UN advocates for permission to use evidence used in court to remove Steve from US custody in its media campaigns. No one really knew any other more compelling evidence, but they determined that the information could only be released with Steve’s permission. The problem was no one knew quite how to obtain Steve’s permission.

After weeks of hated therapy, Steve had started to talk more and acknowledge and even occasionally initiate human contact. The bruising on his inner elbows and his ribs had just started to change from dark reds and purples to dark blues and greens. His nose hadn’t bled since the first week. But his wrists remained as bony as ever; his eyes stayed bloodshot and ringed with dark circles and his hair hung limply into his eyes. No one discussed the nightmares or the nocturnal restlessness. Barnes understood what Steve was going through--felt it to his very bones--so he didn’t push as much as he probably should have. 

But if they were going to use anyone as a case-study, it had to be Steve. Which is how Barnes ended up on the floor on this particular day, with one arm edging further and further under the couch and his eyes locked on Steve’s pout. He’d tried bargaining and offering alternatives. At one point he and Barton tried to tag-team Steve by having Barton lay in front of the couch and Barnes behind it; the plan was that Barton would make a grab at Steve and Steve would move back into Barnes’s arms but all that really happened was that Barton jerked and Steve managed to climb up into the couch springs and didn’t come down for an hour. 

“Steven Grant,” Bucky growled softly, “You ain’t getting out of this one, kid.”

“James Buchanan,” Steve countered softly, “No.” 

“Steve,” Bucky could feel himself whining, deflating, “C’mon, pal, just gimme a chance. Let’s talk like normal people. It’s important.”

“No.”

“You wanna go home don’t you?” Steve glared. “Stark told me you broke into his lab the other day and drew all over his walls.” Bucky, out of desperation to jog Steve’s memory, had requested some paints (non-toxic, quick drying acrylics) from his advocate. They were delivered and presented to the couch as an offering. Stark had woken up the next morning to find the white wall opposite of one of his work benches in the lab covered with a mural of various scenes form 1930s Brooklyn. Among them were the sketchy faces of people Barnes was coming to remember as the Howling Commandoes, his ma, Steve’s ma, and a number of others who consisted more of splotches of shadow than features. 

Even in the face of this evidence, Steve remained immovable. Barnes sighed. He really didn’t want it to have come to this. What that old saying? You can bring a horse to water etc. etc. Given his specific skillset, he was pretty sure he could make the damn horse drink. He reached out his arm, ready to maneuver Steve out from the couch by force.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said a low, deep voice behind him. Barnes withdrew his head from the couch to see handler number 3, Second Lieutenant Oman standing there in sweats and a gray tank top. His beard remained as impeccable as ever, despite living in the safehouse barracks for about 4 weeks now. He had an immaculate eyebrow raised. “He looks cute and cuddly, but I have personally witnessed that guy flip a car,” he observed. 

Huh. So Steve still had the super-strength, just not the super-size. “Good to know,” he said. 

“He’s also been high-strung for the last couple days, so chances are that he’s gonna snap soon and try to pound someone’s head in,” Oman offered after a few moments. 

“That happen often?”

“I wouldn’t say often. He tends to err on the side of hissing and spitting than intentional, orchestrated violence, but it has happened a few times when he felt threatened. I told him to locate a target once and he fucked off and brought me the remains of a company the next day. They were fairly traumatized. He also bit the shit out of Major Collins and broke three of Major Rosenheim’s ribs one of the first times they hooked him up to that machine of theirs. So, you know, if you’re gonna handle him when he’s pissed, I would recommend using the other arm.” 

“Duly noted,” these handlers were more useful than they looked. The fact that all three were approximately his size and spoke with a similar casual cadence was not lost on him. He flopped over onto his other side and Steve, unwilling to leave his feet vulnerable, squirmed over as well. Barnes didn’t think Steve would hurt him; he hadn’t hurt anyone (besides the biting—the biting was indeed a problem) since he’d arrived. That did not mean that he was not capable of it though. 

“Okay, Stevie let’s try it like this then?” He edged the metal arm closer to Steve. Steve backed away.

“No.”

“This is real important, pal,” he edged the arm just an inch closer; Steve, sensing that he didn’t have much space to back up into, started to sit up and posture at him. His tiny chest inflated and his shoulders stiffened. “We want to make sure that other people don’t get hurt like you. You don’t want other people to get hurt do you? You don’t want Nat or Sam to get hurt.” A cheap-shot, Barnes, but no one ever accused him of playing fair. 

“Noooooo,” came Steve’s puffed-up, whining reply. 

“Okay, then we need to talk about what happened to you. And we need your permission to share that information with other people. Good people, bad people, both. No one is gonna come out and say that what those government fuckers did to you was wrong unless they know what happened. You don’t have to do it right away and you don’t have to do it with me, but you need to talk with someone. Is that so much to ask?” 

A pause. “No.”

What? Reason? From Steve Rogers?

“Great. Perfect. So do you wanna come sit with me and think about what you wanna do?”

“No.”

“Damnit, Steve.” 

Oman’s bare feet shuffled through the carpet on the other side of the couch. 

“You know who would be really good at this?” he drawled, crouching down to peer under the couch. Steve whacked the top of his skull on the supporting beams in the couch when he turned to look at him. “Valerie. She’s got a way with him.” 

“I have a way with him,” Barnes snarled. 

“Maybe, but not the way she does,” Oman retorted. Barnes sized him up from across the couch space. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who could be assed to lie or tell tales like someone (Barton) he knew might. He looked more thoughtful than malicious on the whole, so maybe, maybe he was trustworthy. 

“Alright, fine. I’ll ask her to help.”

***

First Lieutenant Valerie Gonzalez had a knack for convincing people of things that they wanted to do. For example, she decided that she wanted to paint her godawful facility room yellow and had convinced the facility managers that they wanted her room to be yellow as well. She had also convinced Second Lieutenant Ayesha Taylor that she wanted to help paint the yellow room and that she wanted her own room to be blue. 

People who stayed around First Lieutenant Gonzalez long enough occasionally found that one second, they were just having a beer with a pretty chill officer and the next they were pouring out their whole life story to her. Then she would hug them and hold them while they drowned her uniform in tears and snot, and through their apologies, she’d say “don’t worry about it my dear, I’ve just got one of those faces.” Half of her soldiers were terrified of her. Bucky was terrified of her. Barnes was unspeakably jealous of her because Steve fucking adored her. 

Sam also adored her; he’d finally found another person with “one of those faces.”

The hallway of the handlers’ rooms was crowded with dismantled furniture and wreaked of paint fumes. Gonzalez’s door was wide open and had blue painters tape lining it. She and Taylor wore oversized white t-shirts and old jeans and were covered in white primer and yellow paint. They’d dragged the bunkbed into the middle of the room, stripped it of all its linens, and dumped a smartphone in a ceramic bowl in the middle of the bottom bunk. The makeshift radio warbled away as the women debated paint-rolling techniques and whether or not they needed paint thinner. 

Barnes, standing awkwardly outside the door (his new hobby), was helplessly, irrationally intimidated. Ruby called these kinds of feelings “social anxiety,” Barnes called them “un-fucking-fair.” He was great at talking to people, he knew this; he was handsome and charming and had murdered dozens of people because they trusted his pout and his shy little laughs, but something about interacting with these people lately spurred thousands of thoughts of rejection and backstabbing and judgement. It was easier to just bitch at Steve under the couch. Steve didn’t give a shit about what he said or how he said it; Steve had already made up his mind about Bucky and even torture and amnesia couldn’t take that away. Steve, however, also knew all of Bucky’s breaking points and most of his insecurities and recklessly exploited them. 

Which was why he needed to talk to Gonzalez in the first place. Okay. C’mon Barnes. You can do it. Hi, my name’s Barnes, we met and I hate you—leave that bit out—we met and Steve really likes you and I’m trying to get him to agree to—give permission to—release his court evidence so that the UN regulation lobby can move forward and—

“Why do you hate me?” When the fuck did Gonzalez get to the door? Did he say that shit out loud? He was the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier. The—

“Easy, soldier, you’re alright. You were just out here mumbling is all and I wanted to make sure you were alright,” she said. Taylor was staring at him over her shoulder, eyebrows raised in suspicion. 

“I—uh—I—“

“You need help getting Mark II to talk.” 

“He’s not Mark II, he’s Steve! Uh. Sorry, no. I didn’t mean it like that—“ Ladykiller, charming bastard, skirt-chaser, sweet-talker, Steve had lied to him for so long. Gonzalez maintained a neutral expression. 

“The worst feeling in the world is when you admit to someone that you’ve been abused,” She said casually, turning away from him and walking back into the room to mix more paint. “It feels like admitting that you weren’t strong enough or didn’t do something right. And you want to explain, say more about how it’s not your fault, that you’re working on yourself, that you’ve gotten therapy, that you’re stronger and better now, but your throat just closes up and you just turn into a crying mess.” 

Barnes felt his own throat closing up. 

“You did it. You did it to thousands, millions of people when you signed the new Accords. My family was shocked, everyone I knew was shocked. Bucky Barnes, you know? The best guy in the “bullet in your best guy’s gun” jingle. Turned into the Winter Soldier. They, our government, sold your body like a pack of gum. Two of my girlfriends cried for you.”

He hadn’t come here for this. He was here for Steve.

“But you did it,” Gonzalez dipped her paint roller into the shallow honey-blossom paint in her tin. She rolled it against the bumps on the tray to even out the paint before applying it to the freshly primed wall. “And you’ve had therapy and you’ve worked hard. And you don’t seem like the Winter Soldier to me,” She looked back at him with her not-black eyes, looked him up and down. Measuring, weighing his worth, his progress his—“you seem like Bucky Barnes, the guy in the museum. Like all those things they said about you. Charming, caring. Stupid for Mark—Cap.” She started in on her wall, painting sunshine like it was her God-given right to do so. 

“Now he has to do that. And he’s scared. He’s more scared now than he was when it was happening to him because he was America’s golden boy and then he was American’s fallen hero, and now he’s America’s tragic victim. And it’s hard to admit that you were wrong, but something even more wrong happened to you and people need to pay attention to that. It’s hard to imagine yourself as a victim when you think that you’ve hurt so many others. It also makes people less likely to listen when you speak up. He’s scared of that. It’s easier to keep all the hurt on the inside right now.” 

She kept painting. Bucky was terrified of her, and now Barnes was too, but he never backed down from a fight.

“He needs to do this,” he said, “It’s scary and awful, but he needs to do it, I’ve been there and I am the first one to say that it feels like shit when the whole world is shaming you, but. But. I don’t know. It’s gonna make everything easier after he’s done it,” he paused. “But I can’t seem to get that across to him. I don’t know how to talk to him anymore; he doesn’t want to hear me right now and I can’t say anything right and I feel like I’m makin’ it worse.”

Taylor whipped her head over her should and beamed at him, her teeth were perfectly straight. A smile like sunshine, like Steve’s. Gonzalez turned around slowly, her own smile stretching into her cheeks. 

“Don’t worry my dear, I understand. I’ll talk to him. Thank you for sharing with us.” 

Wait what? It was that easy? Why was he blushing. There was no need to blush. Gals smile at people all the time. He didn’t do anything special. He mumbled his thanks and backed slowly out of their line of sight before sprinting down the hall into the elevator. 

***

Gonzalez was a miracle worker. Barnes had been in the kitchen making lunch, watching Steve watching Sam, when she lazily wandered into the room with the odor of paint. She held two glasses under the tap and followed his gaze to the loveseat where Sam was asking for trouble, casually swinging his foot off the side of the cushions as the TV blared some show about angry, wealthy women. They all knew the chances of Steve leaping out from under the couch were slim, but that didn’t stop Sam from antagonizing him. 

Gonzalez snorted in amusement and walked towards the couch. She plonked the two glasses of water on the side table and knelt down to look at Steve’s tense shoulders. Steve squirmed, doubling up so that he could look at her. 

“Hey sweetheart,” she crooned at him, “you’ve been under that couch all day. You aren’t a cat and you aren’t a baby. You need something to do? ‘Cause I got a job for you.” Barnes imagined Steve perking up at the sound of a task. “Well come on.” She backed away from the couch and sat on her heels. He and Sam watched with rap attention as Steve wriggled out and mimicked her, settling on his heels. He had dust-bunnies in his hair and dark circles around his eyes. There was a scratch on his forearm, disappearing into his fatigues, smeared with drying blood. He must have scratched himself on the wooden beams in the couch frame. Gonzalez appraised him. 

“Everything about you needs a wash right now,” she grumbled, picking the dust-bunnies out of his hair, “but that can wait I guess. We’re painting. Get a glass of water and take off your shoes.” 

Steve bounced up, struggled with his boots and hurried into the kitchen. Bucky snickered as he opened the cabinet to discover the glassware sitting on the third shelf. He snapped his head around to glare at Bucky and held that glare as he climbed up onto the counter to retrieve a glass. Bucky batted his eyes at him as he came back over to Gonzalez. He got a punch to the gut for his trouble before Gonzalez dragged Steve by the back of his shirt to the elevator. 

Sam snorted at the two of them and placed his foot securely on the ground. 

***

Two days later, Barnes, bored out of his skull, accidentally wandered into Banner’s lab where he was greeted by not only Bruce, but Stark. Barnes had to admit that Stark knew how to improvise. As the weeks went on, his lab developed large tables and more and more sophisticated equipment. Some of it appeared to have spilled over to Banner’s room along with Stark himself.

Everyone was allowed to request furniture and food and other bits and bobs from their UN advocates according to the protection agreements they all signed, but there was a limited budget to do so. Given that 90% of the American superhuman population had experience at or around the poverty line, people were pretty good about making do with what they had. That meant, however, that their facility was fairly drab and lifeless most of the time. The place had a mass-marketed, college-dorm feel to it. It was only when you peeked inside individual rooms that you found life and character. Banner had requested plants. He was a good plant-dad; his children sprawled across the room, some hanging from the ceiling in pots nestled in twisted cords. He’d also amassed a collection of second-hand books and colorful tapestries. A few candles and incense burners cluttered the occasional flat surface alongside beakers, rice-cooker shaped devices, and computer screens. It was a calming room. Barnes’s own room was kind of a haphazard collection of novels, coffee cups, and pillows. He hadn’t put anything on the walls yet, but he had requested a down comforter for the bed. It was the nicest space he’d ever had. 

Banner’s bed currently held the man himself in it, a notepad on his knees, surrounded by huge paper-back reference books. Stark leant back precariously in the only chair in the room, a laptop in front of him with a black and green screen on it. It took both a long time to notice him. 

“Barnes!” Stark called, gesturing rapidly for him to come all the way through the door. “Hey, haven’t seen you in days, any word on mighty mouse?” 

“Not really. He’s been off with Val and her crew for the last couple days. She told me they were going to talk.” Banner had stopped reading at some point and was studying him over his notepad. 

“Is Steve going to give permission for the PR team to use the videos?” He asked. 

“I dunno. I hope so, I think so. That gal can wear you down,” Banner moved some books from the space next to him and Barnes sat down next to him. 

“Steve and I weren’t exactly close,” Banner explained, “But I do worry about how this whole thing is affecting him. It’s only been what, a month? Maybe six weeks since he’s been out of the army? People usually take years to get over what he’s been through, if they do at all. No offense,” he finished, looking at Barnes a little sheepishly.

“It’s fine, I am a stunning example of exceptional humanity,” Barnes said. 

“We don’t really know what they did to him, though,” Stark was rocking back and forth in the chair, appearing to be moments from disaster before falling forward and then doing it again. 

Banner hummed in agreement. Barnes said nothing. Stark continued.

“I mean, if they somehow broke the serum, then that’s one thing. If they didn’t though, that’s an entirely different ballpark. Either way, I’m pretty tired of being in Geneva. What do you think it would take to get us back home?” 

“I don’t think they totally broke or disabled the serum,” Barnes said, “Lieutenant Oman told me that Steve flipped a truck on a mission before they brought him here. He also said that he’d been pretty vicious with enemy soldiers on missions before then.” 

Banner and Stark were staring at him with interest. He went on, “I haven’t seen any of that, but I guess we could throw Natasha at him to find out if we really wanted. I don’t know how helpful that would be for us though. It works in the UN’s favor for Steve to be all little and helpless. If they can use him to kick up a big enough fuss with the international community, then chances are the US government will have to sign some kind of sanctions or regulations for its Accord protocols. That would probably be enough to get us back home.”

“What if becoming big Steve made it easier for him to speak out?” Stark asked, “What if the serum can help him work through a lot of the amnesia, brainwashing, PTSD, whatever hell it is that he’s dealing with? Did it help you?”

Barnes considered it, ”My serum is a knock-off of Steve’s, let’s not forget. I don’t think it helped too much with the PTSD and shit, but it did help the fried egg parts of my brain regrow faster. At least that’s what the doctors told me when I woke up. For that to work though, I had to go into cryo for a few months. Steve’s never been in cryo like I have, so I don’t even know if it would work for him.”

Stark looked too thoughtful. Banner glanced over and then back to his notepad, “No, Tony.”

“Why not? I could make a cryo chamber, it can’t be that hard.”

“We don’t know if it would work and Steve would be terrified, not to mention traumatized, not to mention potentially dead if we just popped him in it without anything to go off of.” 

Stark smiled at Barnes with every tooth in his head. Barnes avoided eye contact by turning towards Banner. But he also thought about it. He thought about the scratches and bruising on Steve’s arms. Considered his dark circles. Steve didn’t die after having the shit beaten out of him in Whereverthefuckistan, even though he was at his weakest. Cryo, for all that it was scary at first, was soothing once you were in it. And anyways, it usually only took a few hours for mild-to-moderate injuries to heal during cryo. If they put Steve into cryo for just a few hours and brought him out again, they should be able to tell how his body would react to it. And maybe. Maybe if cryo worked for him, then they could put him on ice for a few weeks, wake him up, and have him in a better place to actually get somewhere with the therapy and with the PR campaign. He squashed down the hope of having Steve back to one hundred percent with his sketches and laughs and sunshine smiles. Low expectations decrease the chances of disappointment.

“I’ll ask Sam what he thinks,” he offered. 

Stark punched the air. 

***

Sam had many thoughts and they all pointed back to Steve making the decision.

“Everyone heals differently,” he explained as they sat on the kitchen counter, eating pancakes with their hands. “Steve might not be saying a lot to us right now, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t making progress.” 

“Maybe not, but don’t you think he’d rather make more progress faster?”

“I dunno, man, that’s something only Steve can tell us. There’s always the danger of people going too fast and sliding backwards. People are going to slide backwards anyways, regardless of how quick or slow their process is, but imagine moving a mile a minute and then falling back from that. It would feel like dropping out of the sky. You start thinking, ‘I thought we were over this, this was something I did at the very beginning, I thought I was okay. If I can’t even stop this from happening what the fuck am I even doing? Have I made any progress at all? Is this just a façade?’ If you move a little slower you can write some of those slips-ups off as having a bad day or part of a pattern, a trigger, or something like that. We don’t know which way Steve wants to go or how he’s feeling about those things.”

“Well, how the fuck are we supposed to do anything,” Barnes moaned, laying back so his head hung off the counter, “As much as America hates my ass right now, I would rather be there than trapped in this building for much longer.”

“I have a novel idea,” Sam said.

“Sam,” he groaned.

“We could—“

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“—ask him?”

“He barely talks, what makes you think he even understands what’s going on?” Barnes snapped. 

“He ain’t a thing, Barnes. People around here seem to be forgetting that. Steve’s a person; he deserves to have his opinion asked and listened to, even when he doesn’t have one or doesn’t want to express one. No one’s explaining anything to him, so how’s he supposed to know how to respond? You of all people should know better than playing that game.”

It was unusual to see Sam so serious, and Barnes felt bad about pissing him off. He kept forgetting that he wasn’t the only one who gave a shit about Steve. Sam worked with Steve a lot, probably more than Barnes did. He was always talking to him, even when he was under the couch. Asking him how he was feeling and cracking jokes which he laughed at more than Steve did. Steve returned Sam’s affections through huffs of laughter and quick touches to his hands or rapid-fire hugs. He even, very rarely, curled up next to Sam on the couch or at the counter, a safe arm’s length away. He did a lot of that stuff with Bucky, but it felt different. It was natural for the two of them, whereas between he and Sam, there was a sense of intentionality. They wanted to show each other trust and this was how they did it. Maybe Sam could read Steve better than he could, maybe that was why Sam wasn’t as concerned about his lack of progress. 

“I’m sorry, you’re right, I feel like an ass.” Sam raised an eyebrow at him, then smiled.

“It’s alright, man. Just don’t forget you’re not the only one going through this. I think Nat’s going to give Barton an aneurysm. He told me she keeps asking him how Steve might react to X, Y and Z. She tried to feed Steve a Cheeto the other day and, I swear, I thought she was gonna cry when he didn’t like it. Barton said that he feels like he’s being punished for sins he didn’t commit.” 

***

Barnes didn’t know why he was so hesitant to talk to Steve. They were best friends, lovers, and everything in between. But there he was, standing outside yet another door, trying to decide whether to knock or go back and grab Sam from the dayroom for moral support. 

He took a death breath, counted to five and then let it out. He knocked on the door. 

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but no answer certainly wasn’t it. He knocked again. Waited a minute. Started to get mad and knocked a third time. 

Still no answer. 

He took and released five more breaths. Kicking in door, Ruby told him, was not an acceptable way to get what you want. He knew that, he really did, he wasn’t born in a barn. But sometimes. Sometimes kicking in the door made everything a whole lot neater. 

Arms wrapped around him from the back and he nearly jumped out of his boots. Oh. Steve hadn’t even been in the room. He released Bucky and stared up at his with his blue, blue eyes. 

“Buck?” he asked. 

“Hey pal,” Barnes—Bucky—no, not yet. Barnes, replied, “You got a moment?” 

Steve stared at him hard. Barnes’s heart twinged at the delicate red skin rimming his eyes. Steve’s body language screamed no, but his eyes said yes and Bucky was trying to remember how to read those signs. Steve tipped his head back down and then nodded twice. He reached for one of Bucky’s hands, but seemed to think better of it and pulled back at the last second. He still had that scratch on his arm, it looked like he’d been picking at it. 

Steven opened the door, which had been left unlocked and, eyes locked on Bucky’s knees, he moved back into the room. Steve’s concept of property was still messed up, so there wasn’t much in his room. There, on the bed pushed up into the corner farthest from the window, however, were the two down comforters Gonzalez had requested for him before he arrived. They were piled together with a Steve-sized hollow in the middle. Above them hung a string of white Christmas lights in zig-zags. Steve had apparently charmed Banner into giving him the offspring of one of the succulents he kept in his lab and had settled it in the lonely, but sunny crook of the window sill. The blinds were left horizontal for maximum light, even though it was approaching sunset. There was nothing else in the room. The few cabinets were left bare and, if he looked, Bucky was sure he’d find all the drawers empty. 

Steve meandered over to his pile of comforters and sat down in them with crossed legs. Bucky went after him, took off his boots, and joined him on the bed. The light bleached out Steve’s injuries for the moment, but Bucky knew that in 15 or 20 minutes, the dusk’s light would sharpen them. Steve brought his knees up to his face and stared at his little plant. Bucky felt odd, felt like Steve had decided to share something special with him, but he didn’t think that this little space was it. He felt compelled to move a little closer to Steve, so he did. Steve immediately shifted his gaze from the plant back to him. His eyes glanced at the space between them and then he gently leaned sideways so that his shoulder settled against Bucky’s. 

“You want to put me on ice,” Steve mumbled. Bucky felt sick. Of course Steve would have heard that, he must have hidden under the couch when he and Sam were talking. Or maybe he’d been around the corner when Bucky had met with Banner and Stark. 

Bucky blew out a breath. 

“Yeah, I think it would help you. Your body. Your head. But I don’t know what you need right now, so I didn’t wanna push you,” he hadn’t felt this honest in ages, “Sorry, pal.” 

Steve drew patterns in the fabric at his feet. 

“I feel really bad,” he mumbled. “Everything hurts really bad. On the outside, sometimes, but on the inside a lot. I can’t make sleep happen. I feel really tired.” Bucky swallowed and tried to stop the burning in his eyes. He didn’t know what to say. Steve made eye contact with him though.

“Will the ice make that stop?” He sounded so hopeful.

“Maybe? I dunno. It does for me. But your serum is different,” Bucky said.

Steve reached up and very tenderly touched Bucky’s jaw, it was a complete turnaround from how he’d been since he’d gotten to the safehouse. Bucky was starting to think that Steve was acting this way because he was approaching his breaking point. 

“My serum is broken,” Steve said. “They took it from me and put it back in. Then took it again, and put it back in. If it is there, then it’s confused,” he paused, “I don’t know if it can be fixed, but if it will make everything stop hurting, then I might try the ice.” 

Bucky studied him. This was a big step, but it wasn’t the only thing they had to talk about.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll tell Stark and Banner that you want to try cryo. We can just do it for a few hours the first time, so we can see if your serum really is broken or if it is just confused. But, after that. After that, Stevie, you need to think about what you are going to do. You aren’t stupid, you know that the UN needs you to make its case for regulations.” Steve turned away from him and it was like someone plucked the moon from the sky. 

“Stevie, I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to. But. I. I want you to know that I know how you’re feeling. I’ve been there, you know I’ve been there. Take it from me though, it’s gotta get worse before it gets better. So the sooner it gets worse, the sooner it’ll get better. If people have it in themselves to forgive me, then they’ve gotta have it in themselves to forgive you.” Steve turned back to him and with a punch to the gut, Bucky saw tears dripping down his face. 

“I don’t deserve to be forgiven,” Steve choked out. “I hurt—killed—so many people. They are dead because of me, because of my decisions and my selfishness. I won’t ask people to change their feelings for my own comfort. Because someone gave me what I’ve had coming.” He moved away from Bucky, pulled his knees up tight to his face and tucked his nose down into them. Bucky hadn’t felt this way since Sarah Rogers’s funeral. Helpless. Nothing to say. Nothing to do. 

He counted five breaths before falling back onto the bed. The dusk light made the room orange; it threw sharp linear shadows on the wall from Steve’s blinds. It made Steve’s neck glow orange and strands of his hair burn white. Bucky reached his metal arm around Steve and hovered it where Steve’s head met his knees. Steve lifted his face and arms and allowed Bucky to tuck his arm into the curve of his chest and stomach. He went with Bucky when he pulled Steve down across his chest. He let Bucky stroke his white-lit hair and lightly scrape his sun-warm fingers under his eyelashes. 

“Babydoll,” Bucky said as low as he could, “even if the world is against you, you know you’ve got me. ‘Til the end of the line and all that jazz.” Steve raised his face to meet his eyes. His pale lashes stuck together with residual tears. “And even though you can’t see it, you’ve got a small army of friends and colleagues and other people who want you to be safe and happy and whatever else you want to be. And we’ll do whatever we need to, to help you make that happen. You know that?” Steve huffed, then nodded his head slightly with new tears threatening his eyes.

“Good, ‘cause I worry, you know. Now here's what we can do: we can trust that these people know what they are doing and why they are doing it and we can follow their advice to get those Accords taken care of, or we can thank these guys for everything they’ve done and we can call it a day and we can go back to the States, tell the government that we’re gonna do what they wanted us to do the whole time: retire. Buy a farm in upstate New York, piss off some cows and chickens with how terrible we are at farming. Change our names, get married, do whatever you wanna do, pal. All you gotta do, sweetheart, is tell me which way you wanna go, and we’ll make that happen.” He counted the lack of tears as a win. Mentally high-fived himself for smooth-talking. Steve was thinking in his arms. 

“People will get hurt if we don’t fix the Accords,” he ground out hoarsely.

“Probably,” Bucky shrugged. 

“They could hurt people like Nat and Sam; they could do what they did to me to them,” he continued. 

“Sure could,” Bucky said. 

“They could discharge Val and Ayesha and Amir over their involvement, discharge them dishonorably.”

“Most definitely, if they haven’t already done it.”

Steve was quiet. Bucky played with his hair. Little dust motes floated in front of the blinds. Steve sat up and his eyes burned green in the remaining orange light. His bony fingers dug into Bucky’s shoulders. 

“Put me in cryo,” he said. 

***

Stark was far too enthusiastic to make a cryo chamber. For real, though, he was practically rattling. Potts banned caffeine from his lab, which had the consequence of Stark drinking absurd amounts of coffee made through a tiny yellow coffee maker placed right outside the lab door (the placement of said coffee maker had required him to snake two extension cords from the single outlet at the farthest side of the hall to a makeshift table comprised of pile of textbooks set up 3 feet away from the lab entrance). Nat started a betting pool for whether Potts would kill him by suffocation or strangulation.

After their conversation, Steve returned to his largely non-verbal self, although he had not taken up residence under the hideous couch since. He had, instead, taken to pissing Barnes off by cuddling up with Gonzalez while staring at him straight in the face, entirely aware of Bucky’s jealously. Sam picked up on it and found the whole thing hilarious. When Steve settled in with Sam, they both stared at him with twin challenging expressions. 

The whole super-troop was visited by the UN PR team after they learned that Steve intended to attempt a cryo session. Nervously, they asked Steve whether he’d give permission to release the videos, to which he responded, to everyone’s shock, that he wanted them to be leaked. Barton spewed some nonsense about being a proud spy-parent and Natasha did not hit him. The PR team, flustered by the overwhelming amount of permission they now had, stuttered about how they could see if it was possible to arrange this, although--stated clearly and duly recorded by multiple devices--they explained that they did not condone international information leaks. One of the specialist’s secretaries with pastel blue, pink, and purple hair looked like Christmas had come early. Barnes was pretty sure he’d found the leaker. In the meantime, the PR team decided that it wanted to film an interview with Steve after his cryo session (provided he did not die, Banner helpfully pointed out). And so the dates were set and Stark and a skeptical Banner were left to construct a cryo chamber. 

***

Stark and Banner’s cryo chamber was fucking stupid looking if anyone asked Barnes, which everyone did. Barnes’s various tanks had been made for durability and longevity. They were glorified boxes of bullet-proof glass. They were uncomfortable and claustrophobic. The insides were scratched up from efforts he himself must have exacted out of fear, maybe boredom, over the years. The outsides were beat to hell from the time he spent fighting not to be put back in them. Way, way back, Hydra used to lock him in the tanks as punishment without turning them on because they knew he’d eventually throw himself into a panic attack standing in it. They’d stopped doing that when he’d come to find the chambers soothing; they’d had to move on to chains and knives. The cryo tank T’Challa’s people had made for him in Wakanda was the nicest tank he could have imagined. 

Steve’s cryo tank was loosely based off of that one, consisting of huge sheets of glass on three sides and stainless steel on the back. Except it looked ten times more expensive. Stark reinforced the edges with more stainless steel, and had installed a black memory foam cushion in the back for “maximum comfort.” All of the cryo equipment was located in a box attached to the stainless steel back panel. It was larger than Barnes’s Wakandan one had been and made a whirring sound. Steve called the tank the icebox. Barnes called it Snow White’s coffin. Steve observed that there were no restraints in the tank. Barnes observed that when he passed out he was gonna smash his forehead into the front window. Banner convinced Stark to install the tank horizontally rather than add the whole host of restraints which popped into his mind. 

Steve’s therapist, a brown-haired woman named Lindsey, took Steve to see the tank every day they met. She asked him to touch it and ask Stark and Banner questions about it. She told him every day for the days leading up to Steve’s freeze date that he was allowed to say that he didn’t want to go through with this and no one would be mad at him if he did. She wasn’t ready when Steve pretended to fall into the tank and get locked in on the fourth day. It earned him a scolding, but got a laugh out of Stark and Banner.

Since their Talk, Steve had started showing more and more of his old personality. This made it harder and easier for everyone to let him go into cryo. He barraged Barnes with a thousand questions. What does it feel like? Is it actually cold? How long is it cold? When do you fall asleep? Does your brain fall asleep before your arms do? Does your heart? Your guts? Do you have to clear out everything in your guts before you freeze? What about your lungs? Can air stay in there? Can air freeze? What happens if you don’t freeze all the way? What happens when you wake up? Can your eyes open right away? Are your eyes all frozen? Wait, of course they’re frozen. How do you see? Can you see after cryo? Jesus, Stevie, I’m cutting you off. 

Stark and Banner were also interested in these questions, and even though they had the tact, rather Banner had the tact and Stark had Potts, to not ask anything not completely relevant to the construction of the tank, Barnes could see Stark rattling away at his workbench. 

Barton and Natasha, upon realizing that Steve was more Steve then he had been in weeks, took it upon themselves to work him up at every opportunity. They were instigators and pains in Barnes’s ass.

“Yo Rogers, which toe do you think freezes first?”

“Hey Cap, can you get frostbite in the tank?”

“Say Steve, you think it’ll take less time for you to freeze then Barnes?”

“You think you’d be able to feel your Prince Charming’s kiss when you get out?”

Steve hadn’t quite remembered how to deal with their tag-teaming, so he immediately directed all questions to Barnes. 

The handlers and Sam were probably the most nervous of the immediate group. Sam had seen Barnes go into cryo, and it wasn’t like he didn’t know how it worked. He was just concerned, he was always concerned. He pulled Steve into his lap or into a hug whenever Steve passed him by and made him promise that he’d wake up. Steve promised every time and let Sam hold him, despite the no manhandling rule (what the fuck, Sam gets a pass, but any time Barnes does it he gets a fist in his face). The handlers didn’t know what to expect. They obviously cared about Steve, enough to risk their lives and careers for him as a combative little automaton. They were all extremely nervous, extremely wary. Gonzalez handled this (ha) by brushing Steve’s hair as though neat or messy hair would make the difference between him freezing and freezing. Taylor and Oman dragged Steve away to watch bad television in Taylor’s room for hours. They took lots of pictures together on their phones.   
Steve was trying to manage all of the fussing gracefully, but he couldn’t quite do it. He snapped a few times, reminding people that he fully intended to wake up damnit. He hid in his room by himself for quiet. Bucky was allowed into that space once. Steve lay on the bed, burrowed into the comforters, twisting the sheet fabric between his fingers. He was thinking. Bucky laid his hand on Steve’s head to bring him out of it for a moment. Steve looked at him with wide eyes, tilted his head into Bucky’s palm briefly, then went back to his twisting and brooding. 

“It’s gonna be alright,” Bucky told him.

“I know,” Steve said. 

On the day of Steve’s cryo, he broke into Bucky’s room and crawled into bed with him. Bucky’s un-caffeinated brain decided that someone was trying to kill him before that someone burrowed into his side and stole most of his covers. He put the knife back under the pillow. He fished Steve out of his armpit with his metal arm and brought him up to his face. Steve was displeased, he liked the armpit, but then he chewed his lip and pressed his face into Bucky’s neck. 

“Buck?” he murmured.

“Yeah?”

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be, babydoll,” Bucky said through his morning grump. “Everything’s gonna be fine. A few hours and you’ll be right back in the frying pan with the rest of us.”

Steve huffed and pressed himself harder into Bucky’s neck. 

“Want me to carry you over the threshold?” Bucky asked. 

“Fuck you, old man.” 

“That’s the Stevie I know.” They dozed for another hour before it was time to get going.

Steve already looked small, but when Banner helped him into a white smock and yoga pants (the most freeze-resistant, Stark offered as a means of explanation, I tried like four different kinds of pants and--) he looked positively tiny. There were mice bigger then him, Barnes reckoned. The whiteness of the smock brought out the darkness of Steve’s bruised elbow and eye circles. The clothes drew everyone’s attention to the scratches and still-healing gashes which littered his forearms and ankles. Steve couldn’t eat for twenty-four hours before his freezing, so he was a potent mixture of un-caffeinated, hungry grump. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” Banner told him, entirely aware of the unusually large population of people in the lab and how everyone’s stomachs were squirming and sinking. Steve, for his part, retorted with:

“Just drop me in the fuckin’ fishbowl already.” It got the laughs it was meant to. Banner looked to Barnes, as though he was the one who had the final say in this. Barnes snorted and started walking towards Steve with a shark-smile.

“No,” Steve moaned, and started to back up from Barnes, “No, no, no, no—“ 

Barnes didn’t give him the chance. He stomped forward, stooped low, then threw Steve over his shoulder. 

“No. NO. NO,” Steve struggled on his shoulder. Snarling and scrabbling against his back, “Put me down. Put me the fuck down you mother—“

He hefted Steve into his forearms bridal-style, held him just above the tank. Steve sneered at him. 

“Give us a kiss for the road, babydoll,” Bucky crooned. 

“Go fuck yourself,” Steve snapped. Bucky heard Sam and Barton bark a laugh behind him.

“Sweeter then pie, you are,” Bucky drawled. Steve narrowed his eyes, then relented. He leaned up and gave Bucky a soft kiss on the cheek to the catcalls and wolf-whistles from the peanut gallery. Bucky gave him one back and whispered in his ear, “Everything is gonna be fine.” 

He settled Steve inside the box, then closed it. Steve looked around, obviously apprehensive, then made himself comfortable and gave Stark a thumbs up. Stark flipped the switch. 

“That’s all, folks,” he announced to the audience. “Give the guy some room. Go do whatever it is that you do. We’ll call you when he’s done cooking—or rather, un-cooking.” 

Everyone left but Sam and Barnes (and the science guys behind them, but they made themselves busy). Steve watched them go through the glass. Barnes sat down next to the tank and placed his hand on side panel and Steve mimicked him. He was only going to be in there for 5 hours, but going to sleep was the hard part, Barnes knew. Sam leaned across and placed his hand next to Barnes’s; Steve twisted his hand sideways so that it would overlap with both of theirs. He looked scared. He looked a little like he was going to cry. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Barnes told him through the glass, enunciating carefully to help Steve read his lips. Sam nodded encouragingly. Steve’s chest inflated and deflated slowly. He bobbed his head and then settled it so he was looking straight up through the top glass. He closed his eyes. 

“My dad died on the table,” Sam said next to Barnes. They watched as Steve practiced the breathing techniques he and Lindsey had discussed. 

Barnes turned to Sam, “I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t tell you, “ Sam said, head bent towards his lap. Steve’s hand started slipping on the glass. He caught himself though, his eye shot open and he looked terrified. Barnes could practically hear Sam’s heartbeat rocket up. Sam stood and leaned over the glass so he could look at Steve, who was having a hard time moving his neck. “It’s okay,” he enunciated slowly, “It’s okay. You’re okay. We’re right here.” Bucky joined him leaning over the side as much as he could without moving his hand from the side panel. 

Steve’s eyes drooped and he made an attempt at nodding. Barnes and Sam didn’t move until his eyelashes fell completely. For the next hour, they watched as his chest expanded slower and slower with each breath. His jaw tightened slightly. The tips of his fingers grew paler where they were pressed up against the glass. Barnes’s fingers and toes grew cold as he remembered the feeling. He had to remind himself to unclench his jaw a few times over the hour. Sam sighed and finally pulled his hand away from Steve’s. He leaned up against the side panel with his legs bent in front of him. He rested his elbows on his knees and settled his head into the basket created by his hands. Banner wandered over and took some readings from the device next to the tank. He scribbled them down, then peered into Steve’s face. He wrote some more notes down and, very gently, touched Sam’s shoulder before meandering back to the workbench where he and Stark had a low conversation. Barnes touched Sam’s knee. 

“You know, it doesn’t mean too much if you don’t believe it,” he said. Sam huffed. 

“He’s going to be fine, I know he is. Those two over there are ridiculous, but ridiculously brilliant,” Sam said, “They won’t let him die.”

“But?” Barnes asked.

“But that doesn’t stop me from worrying. I’m allowed to worry about the guy.” Sam was quiet for a long moment. “Barnes?”

“Yeah?”

“You and Steve, you’re a thing, right?” Sam looked up at him through his eyelashes. 

“I think so? We were. We probably still are. We haven’t called it anything in a long time though.” He thought he knew where this was going and he tried to settle the butterflies in his stomach.   
“I don’t want to get between ya’ll. You know that right?” Sam was a stronger man than anyone Barnes had ever met. He smiled and reached out and laid a few fingers lightly on Sam’s right hand. 

“Sam, we’re both stupid for you, if you haven’t noticed. And we ain’t ever been exclusive, if that’s what you’re asking.” Sam brought his whole head up; he had been preparing himself for the disappointment. 

“What.” 

“You heard me.” Sam’s lips tried not to smile. 

“That’s just you though, that’s not Steve.” 

“Hm, maybe not. But I get the feeling Stevie feels the same way. We can ask him when he wakes up. For the record though, I think you’re pretty great and I’d be happy to lay all over you if you’d let me.” Sam smiled down into his lap, he was definitely blushing. Smooth, Barnes. Good job. 

“I—I—thanks. I’d like that.” Sam said to his hands. Fucking cute. Barnes was gonna die. 

“Can a guy get a decent kiss from you, maybe?” Steve was a little shit, a shy little shit who didn’t like public displays of affection. Who also really liked Sam, Barnes was sure of it.

Sam beamed, still blushing. He folded his legs under himself and leaned forward. It was a soft kiss, warm. Barnes wanted more, but not here, not now, not without Steve. He planted another one on Sam’s jaw when he moved away and winked. 

“You two are fucking gross,” Stark barked from his bench. Banner had piled books on his head trying not to eavesdrop but his ears were bright red. “No making out in the lab.” 

Barnes snorted and settled back against the tank next to Sam, loosely holding his hand. They sat like for a few hours, trading off now and then to get a snack or use the bathroom while Steve slept. 

***

Steve woke up with frost on his eyelashes and a crick in his neck and Barnes was beaming when he saw thin, pale arms with no bruising or scratches. The circles around his eyes were mostly gone too. And he was six ways of pissed off. 

Steve didn’t know how to wait until the ice thawed. He didn’t like that he couldn’t move his jaw right and he couldn’t see right and he couldn’t bitch like he wanted to. He could huff though and by god he huffed. 

Barnes leaned over him and whispered to him about he and Sam’s conversation. He felt a little nervous, but Steve huffed three times fast and squirmed trying to get up. Because Bucky was a fucking sap, he knew that these were pleased huffs rather than angry ones. He explained this to Sam, who tried to pretend that he wasn’t over the moon. Sam laid a hand on Steve’s closest arm to keep him from flailing off the table and Steve made a tiny frustrated noise. 

Barton filmed the whole thing with absolutely no remorse. The rest of the crew snuck in over the next few hours to watch Steve in various stages of full-body pout. 

***

“I hate cryo,” Steve told Barnes and Sam as Dr. Singh examined him and made notes in his file. 

“It’s awful. The worst sleep ever,” he grumbled to Banner and Stark as they went through their notes with him. 

“How much more I gotta do?” he asked, having invaded Bucky’s bed again at two in the morning. Fresh as a daisy. 

Cyro kickstarted Steve’s healing factor. Whatever was wrong with his serum, a hard reset seemed to been the answer. He’d put on 10 pounds in two weeks and grown two inches. Now, all 5 foot four inches and 105 pounds of him wormed his way in between Sam and Bucky whenever possible. Sam tried to smooth down Steve’s hair to make eye contact with Bucky who had resigned himself to his fate a week ago. 

“Depends,” Sam said.

“On what?” Steve grumbled into his arm.

“On how fucking stubborn you are,” Bucky moaned from the edge of what definitely used to be his bed. 

“Oh,” Steve popped his head out of Sam’s headlock and tucked himself into Bucky’s armpit. “So a long time, then?” he guessed. 

Dr. Singh and Stark and Banner had discussed Steve’s healing rate. They were of the opinion that, without putting him back in cryo, it would take Steve about ten weeks to fully recover. With cryo, they could half that time. The UN advocates fidgeted when presented with this news. The PR team loved tiny Steve and the public, who’d been leaked strings of Steve’s court evidence (including some of the later videos with Steve fighting and scared and having his arm popped back into place), fell over themselves trying to defend their precious, helpless fallen American son from the evils of the government.

Steve was a great help through it all. He’d hammed up the interview he’d done with the PR people after his first cryo session. He wore his original fatigues with “SSR Mark II” embroidered on the name patch and sat all the way back in his chair so his feet didn’t touch the floor. He rubbed his elbows every so often, pretended to catch himself doing so, then stuffed his hands under his thighs. He fidgeted, looked through his eyelashes at the camera, and gave short answers. Barnes was reminded of all the times Sarah Rogers had plonked Steve down on a stool in front of her and told him to look her in the eyes and tell her the truth. It worked like a dream. 

Mayors and governors and primary school classes wrote the UN letters declaring their support of a safety sanctions clause in the Accords. A few groups of old ladies, concerned that Steve and the other superhumans currently in protective UN custody were cold all the way over there in Geneva, mailed them a truly hideous assortment of handknit socks and hats. Steve piled all of these onto the hideous couch to “bring some color” to the dayroom. Stark took a picture of him buried under them and his down comforters and posted it to Twitter, to the dismay of the PR team lead and to the delight of the online Avengers communities which had bemoaned the lack of @AStark’s commentary on the whole affair. In spite of this one pitfall, the PR team congratulated itself on a job well done and passed the buck (euro, peso, pound, whatever they wanted to pass) onto the UN advocates and representatives to get the real legislative work done. They were in the stages of drafting an amendment to the Accords and warming bodies up to the idea of signing it. It could take weeks, they estimated. 

If Steve got better in a month, then they may lose some of the public appeal for their case. A team of lawyers, social workers, and UN representatives were supposed to meet with Steve the following morning to negotiate the best option for him personally and politically. That meeting would decide if Steve went back into cryo. 

And Steve knew this; he’d been present for all of these discussions. He was having a difficult time making the decision, however, which is why he kept bringing it up to Sam and Barnes. At Sam’s behest, they firmly did not answer the question or they redirected the it back to him.

The morning after this meeting, Barnes wandered past a quiet conversation between Sam and Steve where he heard Sam reminding Steve that, despite what was said in the meeting, this was his decision.

“But people are depending on me,” Steve said, picking at his sandwich. 

“And? They ain’t gonna die because their golden boy is six feet tall again,” Sam countered.   
Steve said nothing for a long time.

“Sam?” 

“Yeah?”

“Can I tell you a secret?” A secret? He shouldn’t listen in. This was personal, this was between Steve and Sam. But he couldn’t make himself move; secrets were kind of his career at his point. Barnes looked to his left to make sure no one else was listening in and almost swore when he found Natasha and Barton pressed up against his flank. Fucking spies. They were all horrible people—himself included. Nat pressed her finger to his lips and pointed. Don’t make a scene, Barton mouthed.

“Sure, man, you can tell me whatever you want.” Sam laid his hands face down on the table, kept an open posture. 

“I hate the Cap body,” Steve mumbled. Sam looked surprised.

“Sorry, what?”

“I hate the Cap body, it feels wrong. It doesn’t feel like me. I look in the mirror or I move weird or I do just normal stuff and it feels like something—someone—else is doing it. It’s bad, I know it’s bad. I don’t mean to be ungrateful. I know what the serum has meant to people. But, you know. I still hate it.” 

Sam took a long time to think through what he wanted to say. Steve was uncomfortable, he crumbled his sandwich more. 

“Thanks for telling me that, Steve. I guess I never thought that you’d feel that way.” 

Was he buying time to think of something else to say? Barnes pulled himself out of spy-mode. Steve hated his body, that was nothing new. Steve had hated his body since the day he became aware of it. Different reasons though; he hated his little body because it broke. Constantly. It didn’t work right, didn’t grow right, caused him a lot of pain. But those little bones were all Steve and it had taken Barnes ages to get used to a Steve who heard with both ears and who breathed without coughing. He thought about Steve’s new body, the way he held himself as though he was always a beat away from hurting something or breaking something. He had a hard time relaxing, didn’t know where to put his arms. Had to relearn how to how a pencil and brush his teeth, he’d told Barnes. Whose bones did those ones belong to, Barnes wondered. Because Steve apparently didn’t think they were his. 

“No, it’s not like that. Sorry, I wasn’t very clear. It’s hard to explain,” Steve said. 

“Do you want to try again?” Sam asked. 

“Do you look like your ma?” Steve asked instead, “Do you talk like her or your dad?” Sam was taken aback. 

“I guess I talk like my mama,” he said, eyebrows furrowing, trying to figure out where Steve was going with this, “My sister and I spent the most time around her growing up. Although we started talking different when we went to school, made new friends, you know that kind of thing. I look like her too, my sister looks like my dad. My mama said that when I was born, my dad was a little disappointed he couldn’t find himself in me.”

Steve considered this. “Me too. I look like my mam,” he said. “I never met my dad, but ma always told me that I was his spittin’ image. When she was dying, she told me she’d lied to me about that and she was real sorry. Anyways, I talked like my ma too, for a long time. She was Irish, from Dublin, used to keep her papers in the drawer closest to our front door. She had a strong accent and so did I for a long time. Buck used to tease me about it. But I went to school and lost a lot of it. Then she died, and I lost more of it. And then when I became Cap, they told me Cap wasn’t Irish. Cap’s a New Yorker, an American, son, go practice.”

Bucky had always wondered when Steve had stopped sounding like himself. 

“When I’m Cap, it feels like that. Like I’m me, but some weird, special version of me. Cap aint’ Irish, ain’t poor, ain’t Catholic, ain’t bullheaded. It’s hard to be him all the time when I’m all those things. And, one of those things, I guess. Is that I’m little. Ma used to say it was one of the three blessings God gave her; made her life easier as opposed to having some huge son she couldn’t pull out of fights or hold up when he was sick.” Steve started separating the layers in the sandwich, laying them individually on the sides of the plate. 

“What were the other two?” Sam asked.

“Huh?”

“The other two blessings God gave your mama?” 

“Oh,” Steve blushed, “My dad and me.” Sam smiled a huge gap-toothed smile. 

“When I put on those wings, I’m a different guy. Falcon--I love that shit, man.” Sam said as his leaned on his elbow. “Usually I’m just a counselor, though, just a guy trying to help people, but you know? Sometimes people aren’t ready for that and they take their anger out on me. And after a while, you start to hold onto some of that emotion. I know it isn’t meant for me, but I still feel like it is. When I’m Falcon though, my moral compass is true North. I don’t think like I do in my office: am I doing this right? Am I giving this person what they need? Do I even know what I’m doing? None of that. Things are cleaner.   
It’s what I liked about the Air Force. The decision is just that, you make it and it’s done and there’s no more waffling after that. I mean, obviously you do some waffling after you’re done with your mission or whatever, but it’s a different kind of thinking. It was nice, kinda freeing.” Sam took a drink from his glass. 

“But it’s not like that in real life; I couldn’t be Falcon all the time. There’s too many gray-zones. If I was Falcon all the time, I’d be an asshole.” Steve raised his head to look at him. Sam grinned. 

“Cap’s an asshole,” Steve pronounced. Sam laughed. 

“I got news for you, man. You’re an asshole too.”

“Yeah, it’s an integral part of my personality,” Steve said.

“Well, then I guess there’s a little bit of you in Cap after all.” Sam countered.

Barton and Nat looked stupidly pleased. Barnes glared hard at them. Nat nudged him with her shoulder, he pushed her off and jerkily gestured for Barton to fuck off as well. They did, but still with wide grins. He tipped his head back against the wall and let out a silent sigh. He left before Sam or Steve could notice him.

***

Steve decided not to go into cryo. He did decide, vehemently, that he wanted to go home, though. Dr. Maskall put his head on the desk during that conversation. 

Steve had a point. There was less and less to do around the safehouse. Stark was at his wit’s end and had started improving the infrastructure of the building. Banner helped him, having read all the books in his room. The handlers kept requesting calls to their families and Gonzalez played Mexican rap on their floor louder and louder every day. Potts continued to run Stark Industries from the room she shared with Stark, while Natasha and Barton were running out of ways to try to kill each other in the gym. 

Steve took to detailing the mural in Stark’s lab with his fingers. The Howling Commandoes came more to life with color in their cheeks and highlights in their eyes. The Brooklyn skyline and the view from Steve and Bucky’s old apartment were swathed in orange. Steve’s ma remained a sketch. Steve had to scrub paint from his fingernails to his elbows. 

Barnes finished his last sci-fi novel and was marathoning The Real Housewives of Atlanta with Sam in the dayroom. He wanted to watch Rachel Ray make enough thirty minute meals to feed an army, but he lost the coin toss. Nat chided him that he should have bluffed the toss.

It was time to go home, and even the social workers couldn’t say otherwise. 

86 nations had approved the new Accords. 31 left to go. At the top of the short list was the USA. Some of the others (possibly including the US) were in political turmoil and probably wouldn’t sign for a while yet, so as soon as the US signed, the UN agreed to allow their clients to go home. Colonel Rhodes sent some emails. Pepper Potts sent some emails. Steve sent some handwritten letters, thanking the old lady organizations for the socks and telling the primary school kids that he was hoping to come home soon. 

Things came to a head when Stark cracked and decided to make a vlog to help people get a real feel for the situation. He did this without telling anyone, including the PR team. He filmed Sam and Barnes arguing over who was the most fake housewife, then te snuck into his lab with surprising stealth (chiding his viewers—although more himself-- to shut the fuck up for real the whole time) to catch Steve, now 5’6” and a 127 pounds, smearing paint into a Brooklyn sunset and onto the Washington monument. He had Banner introduce each of his plants, their Latin names, and their favorite pastimes. He captured a terrifying no-holds-barred sparring match between Natasha and Barton who were only too happy to have an audience. He brought the camera up to the handlers' floor and stood in the hallway, recording the blasting of competing music genres. 

“This,” he said, holding the camera selfie style, “Is madness.” 

Stark was proud of the number of retweets and shares the video got. He made another one asking Steve to recite the whole 1940s Captain America script while playing the USO background music on Barnes’s smartphone. Steve did it on the condition that Barton would play Hitler. 

“If you liked this video/photo give us a thumbs up and write to your Congress people asking them to, for the love of god, sign the new Accords,” filled the description box of every photo and video Stark posted.

The impromptu media campaign, surprisingly, was enough to get people writing and calling. Stark was proud of himself. Potts was a little proud of him too, but she swore everyone to secrecy.   
About 48 hours before everyone’s breaking point, they got the big news. 

The USA issued a formal apology to Steve Rogers for his treatment in the custody of the US Armed Forces. The Accords were signed. Reparation agreements were sent to everyone at the safehouse. They could finally go home. 

***

They did the media circuits when they all got back to their corners of the country. Yes, we are so thankful to the American people for their support and trust in us. No, we wouldn’t dream of leaving the US ever again. Yes, well everyone makes mistakes, even governments, even superheroes. Don’t worry, we won’t be doing that again. Oh it was alright, safehouses aren’t exactly meant to be fun though. Yes, it was kind of nice to have everyone together in one place. No, we don’t intend on repeating it. Oh you know, normal things, fixing up the house, making friends with the neighbors, working out.   
Steve was a quiet master at PR. He did so much community service. Barnes was convinced that his entire life was community service at this point. Barnes was also convinced that Steve couldn’t fix a sink if his life fucking depended on it and that Sam was absolutely no help in this area either. 

Six months in and he was standing at Home Depot staring at a truly stunning selection of plumber’s glue and getting dirty looks from the DIY moms for the length of his hair. Sam had stuffed a grocery list in his hand before flying upstairs to get ready for work. Steve wanted canned jackfruit. What the hell was jackfruit. 

“Hey, pal.” 

“Fancy meeting you here, Barton. What are you in for?” 

“2x4s and plumber’s glue. You?” 

“Socket wrench and plumber’s tape. I think I’m gonna go with the blue one. You know what jackfruit is?”

“Nah, probably a tropical thing. Like a pineapple.”

“I’ll just get a pineapple then.”

“I like the hair.”

“Thanks, I like the open wound.”

“It’s healing.”

“Looks infected.”

“Probably is, I’ll see you around” Barton grabbed the cheapest plumber’s glue and swung his 2x4s precariously the opposite direction. 

“See ya,” Bucky plucked the blue tape from the shelf and headed towards the metal hardware department. If this was the American dream, he figured that it could be worse. 

***

**Author's Note:**

> And that's all folks. Thank you for reading.


End file.
